Whisperado does not normally perform in black suits and ties.

Disappointing. Unlike the song and video!

If one had the luxury of choice in supporting the band -- say, between buying a physical disc and getting it from iTunes -- is there an option that y'all prefer over the others?

Whisperado does not normally perform in black suits and ties.

Pastel yellow, right?

Way cool! One technical issue viewing it here: The topmost ad (for a find-a-lawyer site) overlapped the corner of the video.

Wow.

Woo!

*throws confetti about*

Unfortunately, if I start asking things like "how did they do those amazing special effects?" that kind of upstages the music.

Love the discs, and the whole production. Kudos!

Snakes. Miracles. Editing. Gerunds. Death.

[letterman] And the #1 rejected Ben Casey tag line is... [/letterman]

Excellent! Made me smile all the way through. Specially the end with the Pride and Prejudice book.

I loved it! Very happy video, especially the ending. I do like that cyborg pop stars apparently run on banked 3.5 inch floppies; wondered what happened to all those old B:/ drives!

Very good video! I really like the story it tells. Who are the actresses playing the little girl and the dark-haired doll?

I linked it over on Facebook, to see if I can boost your view count a bit; I have several friends who are into good indie music but who don't hang out here.

W00t! Cool song, fun video!

Marc Mielke @11 I do like that cyborg pop stars apparently run on banked 3.5 inch floppies

Teenage Popstar Girl 1.0 is a litle old school in her internal design. This sort of goes with her "timeless" appearance. As explained in my:

Teenage Popstar Girl Fanfic

For fifteen years I had worked on her. My Pop Idol, my Idoru, my Electric Barbarella. I had built her from scraps and spares, fed her on MTV and commercial radio. She was a perfect souless incarnation of pop, empty of everything thing while making it look like All Is Full Of Love.

"Why do you want to throw her away? She has years of life left in her."

The executive smiled. "She was an excellent prototype. But model 2.0 can be mass-produced and tests reveal she is 17% more attractive to boys, increasing the profit margin of the product."

"But why not let 1.0 run out her normal lifespan? She has conquered the world (of pop)."

The smile reached the executive's eyes and she leant forward, whispering. "The World Is Not Enough."

Contains nuts? No wonder Danny's gasping for air.

Very cool.

Brilliant concept! Great execution! Benign brainworm!

Madeleine Robins #15: Contains nuts... and bolts, also solder, wires, etc. . ;-)

I did detect a bit of subversive 'remix culture/maker' philosophy in the video, which only makes it that much better.

I love the song and the video, especially the ending. This is really a highly produced piece of film! Didn't know Whisperado could afford that sort of thing.

That was fun :)

My only problem with it is I keep hearing in my head:

Teenage popstar girl
She'd hear it from the people in the town, they'd call her
Teenage popstar girl--
And every night all the men would come around
And lay their money down.

(And now you will too. Heh heh.)

I have been waiting five months to see this again and share it with ALL MY FRIENDS.

Yay!

Because this is the top post at the moment, it earworms me with the song every time I see it.

Fortunately, that's not a bad thing, because I like the song. It's funny though, because I keep bursting into the refrain and then going, "Oh, yeah, I was just on the computer, and clicked over Making Light; that's why I'm singing this."

Lila, #21: AAAAAGGGGHHHHH!

My work here is done!

Seriously, great song, and I *adore* the ending of the video. Signal boosted, minus the annoying crossover.

Does anyone else here find the ending of the video a bit Whedonesque? I can't help wondering how her parents are going to react to her suddenly having an older sister -- sort of the inverse of the BTVS episode where Dawn was introduced.

(My partner laughs at me when I extrapolate beyond the ending of a story, or try to fill in the back-story that led up to it. He says "because the authors wrote it that way" is all the explanation needed, and when it stops it just stops -- there's no after.)

Lee: I figure she can explain her as "this is my Young Life mentor from school" and hide her in the crawlspace during times when it would be suspicious for her to be around.

Lila @27 -- kind of like the way Ichigo hides Rukia in the Bleach anime/manga series?

Tom @ #27, I've never read/seen Bleach, but my daughter is a Bleach fan, and she says "kind of like that, yeah."

Teresa @ #29, I'm glad to hear it, having damn nearly caused an Unfortunate Incident by pointing out to our Katisha that the words to "The Hour of Gladness" fit very neatly to "The Phantom of the Opera". (I vowed henceforth never to do that again until AFTER the final performance of the run!)

Awesome video is awesome. Awesome free video is even more awesome! And it should be an ornament to both the filmmaker's and the actors' portfolios, not to mention Whisperado's.

Lee @26 I can't help wondering how her parents are going to react to her suddenly having an older sister -- sort of the inverse of the BTVS episode where Dawn was introduced.

Explained in my:

Teenage Popstar Girl Fanfic

"Mom, Dad. You remember cousin Poppy. Like we agreed, she's staying with us for the summer."

"Yes," said Mom and Dad. "This is cousin Poppy here to stay with us for the summer."

"Good," I said, "Now if you call us in an hour for lemonade and cookies, that'll be just fine."

They left.

"How did you do that?" asked Teenage Popstar Girl. "It's almost as though... but no."

I reached under my sweatshirt and pulled out that strangely named square disk and showed it to her. "Just this once."

Oh, wow, what a fun video! Really really fantastic quality work, and a super catchy song.

Is there, by any chance, anywhere one can see the lyrics? For those of us too deaf to catch anymore than "teenaged pop-star girl" from the chorus. :/ If I know the lyrics I'll know who to rec this to.

The press release, as published by PR Newswire.

This is so cute and so creepy at the same time.

Nenya @31
The lyrics, from Mr. Sobel's site.

Probably quite reasonably, and maybe they'll have cookies, but still: gnomes have me.

Neil W #30: Lampshading the "magic floppies" much?

Awesome! Great song, great video! Wow!

Wooohoooo!

Love it! Saw it linked on facebook. Shared. Thanks for a catchy tune with an awesome message & great video. :)

Patrick - This was awesome the first time I saw it, and remains completely awesome now. I'm sure the release party will rock!

@fidelio #33: Thank you for the lyrics! :D I googled last night but my fu was weak, apparently.

*replays song*

:D

But why is the heroine of the video reading an abridged version of War and Peace? Or should that say "Vol VII" on the front? (said with a disingenous open face)

Very nice video, and song.

Unfortunately, I'll miss the show. Have to babysit.

Tom@41: I wondered the same thing at first; but then I looked at my copy of Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings. It's close enough to the size and thickness of the book visible in the video for WSOD purposes, and it's also close to the thickness of my paperback War and Peace -- and is taller, to boot. Basically, given relatively thin paper, small font, and small margins, I can accept that a complete War and Peace could be that size.

Tom Whitmore @41 But why is the heroine of the video reading an abridged version of War and Peace? Or should that say "Vol VII" on the front?

Fortunately David Goldfarb has answered that, as otherwise we would need to seek the answer in my Teenage Popstar Girl/Teenage Popstar Girl 2.0 slashfic.

Colbert tonight had Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, and a guy whose name I didn't catch from culturalequity.org talking about Alan Lomax and the archives at their website. Colbert sang along with them.

But I really came over to talk about Teenage Popstar Girl. Bill Roper was one of the guests at Consonance filk convention this weekend, and did a song I'd heard before, based on The Cold Equations - Teenage Popsicle Girl.

I am informed that the video for Teenage Popstar Girl is a selction for the Robot Film Festival. So I've learnt today that:

1. There's a robot film festival[1]; and
2. I'm on the Teenage Popstar Girl video fan mailing list.

[1] Sadly a film festival about robot films rather than a film festival run by robots.

Neil W: My response to learning about this was much the same.